57 Hours

I spent 57 hours between Friday, Saturday and Sunday “back home” in Louisville, KY. I slept from 1 AM to 6:15 AM on Friday, from 11:30 PM until 6 AM on Saturday, and then Midnightish until 5:40 AM on Sunday. Saturday night I fell asleep behind the wheel on Dixie Hwy. Living in Louisville was the last time I ever fell asleep behind the wheel too. The place is just so stressful to me. It's too big, it takes forever to get anywhere. All of the stop lights turn red just for you! I generally just don't like being in that city so I put it off.

I returned to New Hampshire with a sore throat and a fever. Either I had a sickness before I went or I caught something on my way to Kentucky and then my lack of sleep and general lax nutrition over the course of the few days sent me into full blown sickness. I haven't been sick in a great deal of time. I'm bummed that I missed my first day back at work, I missed starting ChaLEAN Extreme when I wanted to. Instead I have been so tired that running to the grocery (since I had no food in the house after having been out of town) was a painful endeavor that had me moaning in the elevator, trying to hold on to bags of groceries.

Some great things about this trip is that no one had seen me in person since 2011, so I've lost 38 pounds since then and got Jillian Michaels'd since, so I'm looking pretty good. And I didn't even notice how good I looked until I saw the pictures that I took with friends while there. I'm actually skinny. I guess it really sank in when I could see myself in a place where I had always been overweight.

I've been thinking of how I want to discuss my travels in blog form. I had some things happen over the early week, before my trip, that I was proud of as far as food, but I will save that for another time. Let's go through the hours piece by piece.

Friday. 12:15 AM.

I stand at the grocery store near my aunt's house trying to find something to have for first and second breakfasts. Designer Whey makes pre-mixed shakes and I thought that was easier than buying almond milk and the powdered stuff. I got 4 little 100 calorie shakes, a set of Chobani Champions, three bananas and a set of JIF Natural To-Go (I figured that'd be easier to take on the plane when I had leftovers).

I'm already exhausted. I didn't sleep on the plane since I wasn't changing planes, just sitting there while the folks from Baltimore filed on, so I was wrist deep in starting my class work for my first term of Graduate School (yay!!!). I had to stand there for 20 minutes while the lady at the car rental counter tried to figure out how to use the computer that I suspect she uses every day at her job. So my flight that came in 10 minutes early put me getting to bed after 1:00 AM. Unfortunately, though the sun comes up an hour later when you're so close to a different time zone than on the edge of the universe that is New England, I was still up and awake at 6:15 AM. That's 5 hours of sleep.

Friday. 11:00 AM.

When you travel, even if you're staying with family, it's so much easier just to go out to eat. Everyone can meet there. It's much easier to decide when to say, “see you all, later.” I ate my normal “First Breakfast” of protein shake and I ate a “Second Breakfast” of yogurt and banana. Thought I was doing a good job. I even did my push-ups and some stretching first thing in the morning. Made me feel good that my aunt thought I was so skinny.

The problem with the South is that there are tons of restaurants. Most of them aren't super healthy. And the ones that are aren't really the kind of place that you drag a large group of family members too (especially grandmothers who eat “traditional” food rather than being willing to try something at a Vegan place). We went to Cheddar's. Cheddar's doesn't actually publish their nutrition facts because it would probably put them out of business. 

Four wraps!  I had two of them.

 My aunt orders an appetizer of onion rings, which I was very good about an just had a few. I order a Buffalo Chicken Wrap. I ask for grilled chicken instead of the fried chicken and a side of broccoli. This wrap could feed two people. Insanity. I ate half (two sections as shown) and all of my broccoli. The thing you can't see is that this wrap isn't lettuce. It's made with cole slaw. Yea. Portion control gets the square on this meal.

Friday. 7:30 PM.

Between lunch and dinner I had some time to hang out with my dad. We met at Starbucks where I had my tiny little frappucinno in “non-fat” version. I went over to his house and had a glass of skim milk and a spoonful of peanut butter. Dinner was tough.

It was the last Friday of Lent and I do have a Catholic family, so everyone was doing the “non-meat” thing so I felt like an ogre if I ate meat in front of them (thought there was some bacon on my wedge salad). Even my grandpa was eating fish. We went to O'Charley's. I split a fried fish and shrimp meal with my half brother, since the kids menu didn't have just fish and he wasn't so sure about the shrimp (and because I knew I couldn't or shouldn't eat it all). So I eat most of my wedge salad. Once piece of fried fish (Luke got the other one) and some fried popcorn shrimp. Ate half the order of sweet potato fries too. The boy doesn't like real fries. I'm so jealous.

I'm super proud of my “step”sister (she's been around for like 10 years so I don't really think I can call her that, but just so you understand my family dynamic, since I do have a good 16 and 20 years on my sister and brother, respectively). She plays on the traveling volleyball team and I'm pretty envious of her taking to sports despite the fact that she seems a little scared to make friends and be in strange groups of kids. That takes bravery. Plus, it was cool to have a conversation about Burpees with a 12 year old. We also compared biceps. Impressed.

Saturday. 7:00 AM.

I agreed to have breakfast with my uncle, his wife, his grandson and my grandpa at 7:00 in the morning. Holy crap. I got to sleep around 11:30 the night before and got up at 6:00 AM to make it to breakfast on time. That's 6.5 hours of sleep.

Cracker Barrel really impressed me with the few “healthier” options that they had for breakfast. While most of the table had a pretty fatty breakfast, I had their Yogurt Parfait with Fruit and granola (that granola was boss, by the way) and a blueberry muffin. I only ate half the muffin then, but I ate the other half later in the day. I'll get back to that.

Saturday. 10:00 AM.

ACTIVITY! I met up with my friend Amie, who you all may know if you've been reading my blog for a long time. Amie wrote a guest post for Autonomous Eats, which you can find by following the link. I hadn't seen her since right before I moved to New Hampshire. I was somewhere around 190 pounds then. Gained a bit back once I did move, but I remember not being too concerned about what I ate when I met her at Rocky's across the river.

We met up to run and have lunch and getting in some activity felt so good after a lethargic couple of days. We enjoyed the new pedestrian bridge they have at Waterfront Park now. VERY good for running, the whole park is really, but the bridge is perfect for interval training because it has such equal spaced landmarks. We did about 2.9 miles, but we moved much more than that with our after lunch walk and with the walking to warm up.

For lunch we split stuff!!! It was so great eating out with someone who also didn't feel the need to finish everything we had. We got a salad to share and some tilapia fajitas which were delicious! We ate at Tumbleweed on the River and it was as good as I remember Tumbleweed being. Also the best service I've ever gotten at a Tumbleweed.

We ate no cheese, no sour cream and no rice.

 Our waitress was nice enough to take a picture of us together on the outside patio. I've put it together with the last photo we took together on the patio when we had dinner the last time. These two pictures show a collective 130 or so lbs lost. I'm so very very proud of Amie and all she has accomplished!! And we look pretty freaking amazing :)

Saturday. 5:30 PM

I had dinner with my gorgeous friend, Alaina and a couple of the ladies we used to work with. That was a good time, especially because the restaurant I chose, Rafferty's, had $2 margaritas from 4 to 8 pm. Haha. Anyway...

I wasn't actually hungry when dinner rolled around. I had eaten the other half of my muffin from breakfast and just generally felt like I was a million pounds (maybe it's because I chose the skinny jeans). I spent a little bit of down time just walking around a bookstore, trying to not be sitting down.

Dinner consisted of one of those soup and salad combos. Got a tasty House Salad and Soup combo. All of the soups they had that day were a “cream of...” so I got potato because hey, yum, potato soup. The house salad was all vegetables with some carbs tossed in. You also get croissants there. Good times.

Saturday. 7:45 PM

I was SOOOOO excited to get to see my friend Emilie and her husband Jerry!!!! I hadn't seen Jerry for an uber long time, though I did see Emilie at my last trip to Louisville. We didn't have a meal, but their son's birthday party was that day, so I enjoyed a piece of cake. And a piece of pizza. I didn't need it but it was there and we were sitting there chatting so I wanted it. And come on, cake... who passes up cake? Awful people, that's who!

Saturday. 11:00 PM.

I fell asleep driving from Alaina's apartment to my aunt's house. I remember the lights at Dixie Hwy and Citation Road blurring into one. I wasn't drunk... $2 margaritas don't actually do that... my throat was also starting to hurt. In my sleepiness, I set my alarm for the next morning for PM instead of AM.

Sunday. 5:40 AM.

I woke up 5 minutes after my set alarm time. I'm pretty impressed with that. Equipped with one last protein shake, my peanut butter (which I never actually ate any of) and my last banana, I stopped by my grandpa's house to say goodbye (drank my shake in his living room) and then I headed to the airport. Dropped off my car. And then there was security.

Security through Louisville always takes longer. I almost feel like NO ONE there knows how to ride on a plane. You don't wear bracelets... you don't wear layers. You shove everything into your bag and then you can bedazzle yourself until your heart is content on the OTHER side of the scanners. This was my first time flying since the full body scanners. I sort of wanted to see the picture of my full body scan. I wanted to see the super small Katie who probably had a killer figure with her hands above her head. Would have been neat to see an underwire bra. Wonder if they could see my thong. Yea. No shame.

The JIF To Go that I mentioned earlier... you can take it through security, unlike a full jar of peanut butter, but you have to keep it in the box that shows the ounces of each container and you have to slide the box down into your quart size ziploc.  I take zero liquids when I fly because I don't want to deal with it.  Honestly, I'd rather they continue not allowing knives of any kind and just let us start taking sealed bottles of liquid.  

I head to Starbucks (really missed me some Dunkin Donuts those few days) to get a coffee, thinking the warm liquid will make my throat feel better. I also get a fruit salad and I eat the rest of my banana. I didn't eat all of the fruit, but it was a good alternative to the muffins, cakes and (gasp) bagels offered there.

Sunday. 9:35 AM Central.

Did a little time traveling and had a quick 40 minutes in Chicago. Long enough to run (literally) to the bathroom and then get in line for the plane back to New Hampshire. 32 people on a plane. We all got our own rows. Lucky for me I got the row in front of the tall, obviously Bostonian gentleman who had restless leg syndrome.

Despite my exhaustion, I was freezing on the plane so I couldn't sleep again. Did some more class work and enjoyed a hot tea, again for my throat. My nose was starting to become runny, though nothing unmanageable without tissues. I was coughing and felt guilty with every cough. I coughed inside of my shirt.

Sunday. 1:20 PM.

Finally back in my handsome gentleman's truck. It was like the drive back to his house was encased in a time rift and I was breathing in and out in slow motion. It felt good to finally relax. My coughing got deeper.

Back at his place, I took a shower (my first actual shower since Thursday, since my aunt's shower was broken) and he made me a delicious little salad. I then went back and took a nap in his bedroom. Three and a half hours later I woke up with a fever and feeling generally not myself. He said I looked pale.

Sunday. 7:00 PM.

Wendy's Frosty Shake.

Monday. 6:00 AM.

Calling in sick. Weight: 132.7. Though I weighed as much as 136 during the trip, I feel that my choices at restaurants were positive ones and once I drank enough water and flushed out the "fake weight" of all of the high sodium restaurant food, I was good. I also didn't feel the need to finish anything if I didn't want it.

Later in the day yesterday (Monday) I found out at the immediate care center that I brought back a nice case of strep throat. What's amazing is generally, I never test positive on a rapid strep test, but I'm glad I did. I'm glad they gave me the antibiotics and that now I'm starting to feel better. My throat is pretty unhappy, dry and so the coughing is unpleasant. But I'm about to take my third dose of antibiotics and I know with each I take in, I'll feel even better.

This morning I weighed 131.8. I logged it because it's a weight loss, but I'm afraid that it is a result of my losing some of my muscle. I know that isn't possible, since I did keep up with my push-ups and I even went running, but it makes me nervous. No matter, though. People get sick. And next week when I finally get to start my new workout routine I'll build it back up and build it more so. I just need to be patient.

I want to sit down with a calendar. Plan my exercise. Plan my school work. Plan my social calendar and plan my extracurricular activities. I just feel a little overwhelmed right now. Probably because I can barely move from this spot.

I know I can do everything I put my mind to. Already posted my part of all of the discussion forum bits for both of my classes for the week. Just have to reply to the posts of others by Sunday. Have a 2-3 page paper due by Sunday (Really? Two to three pages is what I do in my sleep... not that I'm asking for it to be harder... haha) and I have some reading to do. It's hard to figure out what week I'm supposed to have which thing read, hence my wanting to break out a calendar and plan it all in advance.

I have a lot to think about the next 11 weeks.